Brightspace

Getting Started with Brightspace

UMPI Faculty: Brightspace Certified! This self-enrolling and go-at-your-own-pace training was built by CTL for UMPI faculty, specifically.  In this training, you will be able to experience Brightspace as a student, as you learn to teach in Brightspace, with 3 different pathways.

Brightspace Guided Training for Instructors: This course is provided by the D2L Brightspace Community and uses the Brightspace platform with the New Content Experience.

Book an Appointment: You can schedule individual Brightspace course-building appointments with CTL Instructional Designers.

Semester Ready in Brightspace: Follow our five-step process for getting your courses ready in Brightspace.

Brightspace FAQs: Read the frequently asked questions faculty have about Brightspace.

Brightspace Documentation

User Manuals from Brightspace

• Brightspace Pulse App (for students)
• Designing Accessible Courses in Brightspace
• Quick Start Guide for Higher Ed
• Brightspace Online Documentation

User Guides from CTL

• The Grades Tool Guidebook
• Assessment Activities Guidebook
• Brightspace Help Quicklinks Master List

Student engagement in Brightspace

At the heart of student engagement is you, the instructor, building relationships between students and content (as well as being the first line of student support).  Hybrid and online courses are dependent on the LMS to supplement and build up some of the social presence and social learning theory that we incorporate into our face-to-face courses.  Let’s take a look at how you can leverage some of Brightspace’s student engagement tools:

• Announcements display on the course home page, and you can decide which announcements are displayed for a given time.
• Discussion Forums, allow you to create groups of related discussion topics, while the Discussion Topics themselves are where students and faculty will post.  When your Discussion boards are migrated from Blackboard, they will display in one forum.  You can even create a private Discussion to create threaded Journaling between instructor and student (an assignment feature Brightspace does not have)
• Get personal! Replace Strings allow instructors to insert a student’s name, a course name, and more at the beginning of an announcement, from within course assignments, and as email headers–to make large group communications feel personal.
• Set up and use Awards or Certificates to gamify learning and let students share skills attainment in their profiles.
• Set up Chats in the course, in content modules, or from the NavBar to connect with students or connect students with each other at structured times in the semester!

Top 8 Student-Requested Features

The following list represents tools and strategies that UMPI students have identified as being very beneficial to their learning:

1. Use the Announcements tool to post weekly to-dos and due dates.
2. Use content modules, to keep folders of content and tasks altogether, so that students see their progress bars.
3. When creating new assignments, discussions, and activities, don’t forget to add a Due Date, to auto-populate the calendar, and send reminders to students.
4. Embed Youtube and Kaltura videos right into your content modules, for smooth viewing experiences.
5. Faculty use Brightspace tools in different ways–create a short class tour video to let students know how YOU will use it.
6. Place quick access links to assignments, discussions, and quizzes/tests in the modules with that week’s/unit’s learning content.
7. Consider using the Checklist tool at the beginning or end of a module, if you have a lot of diverse tasks.
8. Set up the ability to “manually check completion” on non-required content, so that students can control the progress bar.